Former President Goodluck Jonathan has spoken of the tensed moments he
faced on March 28, 2015 ahead of his decision to concede victory to
President Muhammadu Buhari after that year’s presidential election.

“I was actually in that valley on March 28, 2015”, he said.
Jonathan also narrated why he relinquished power to Buhari, saying
he did not want Nigeria to slide into a theatre of war, with his fellow
county men and woman dying, and many more pouring into other nations in
Africa and beyond, as refugees.

“I never knew that the human brain had the capacity for such enhanced
rapid thinking. One hundred and one things were going through my mind
every second. My country was at the verge of collapse. The tension in
the land was abysmally high and palpable, in the months leading to the
election. The country became more polarised more than ever before, such
that the gap between the North and the South and between Christians and
Muslims became quite pronounced”, the former President said.

“In fact, it became so disturbing that some interest groups in the
United States began to predict indeed, many Nigerians did buy into this
doomsday prophesy as they began to brace themselves for the worst.
“As the President, I reminded myself that the Government I led had
invested so much effort into building our country. I worked hard with my
top officials to encourage Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in our
country to be able to provide jobs and improve the lives of our people.

“We worked hard to grow our economy and to improve and bring Nigeria
up as the biggest economy in Africa, with a GDP of about half a trillion
dollars”.
Jonathan told his story, last week, during a dinner in his honour by
Cercle Diplomatique, Geneva, Switzerland. The former President also
spoke about his foray into politics, the allure of power and future
plans.

He began: “ As you can see, I have not come here with a prepared
speech, since what I consider appropriate for this occasion is to just
thank you all, members and everyone else in attendance, in a few words,
for the dinner and the award, in order not to make the evening look
boring. But having said that, I am still tempted to note that if I were
to present a written speech, the title, would probably have been “Power
Tussle in Africa: A Stumbling Block to Economic Growth.” When Mr. Robert
Blum, your President, made his very interesting opening remarks, he
introduced me as the former President of Nigeria. He was absolutely
correct.

My foray into politics

“However, I believe that not many of you here know that the story of
my foray into politics has a peculiar ring to it. I entered politics in
1998 and, barely one year after, I got elected as the Deputy Governor of
Bayelsa, my state. I later became Governor, Vice President and
eventually got elected as the President of my country. I remain the only
leader in my country to have travelled that route.
As the President, I served out my first term but, as Mr. Blum had
pointed out earlier, I lost the bid to be re-elected. I am encouraged by
the fact that many of you here appreciated my decision not to reject or
contest my loss at the polls, not even in the courts as many people had
expected.

The allure of power

“Again, I have to agree with Blum that it was not an easy decision to
take. This is because the allure of power and the worries about what
would become of you after leaving office constitute an irresistible
force. It has an attraction so controlling and powerful that it takes
a man who has the fear of God and who loves his people and nation to
relinquish power so easily in Africa.

Alone in the valley

“I was actually in that valley on March 28, 2015. I never knew that
the human brain had the capacity for such enhanced rapid thinking. One
hundred and one things were coursing through my mind every second. My
country was at the verge of collapse. The tension in the land was
abysmally high and palpable, in the months and days leading to the
election. The country became more polarized more than ever before, such
that the gap between the North and the South and between Christians and
Muslims became quite pronounced. In fact, it became so disturbing that
some interest groups in the United States began to predict that Nigeria
would disintegrate in 2015. And, indeed, many Nigerians did buy into
this doomsday prophesy as they began to brace themselves for the worst.
As the President, I reminded myself that the Government I led had
invested so much effort into building our country. I worked hard with my
top officials to encourage Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in our
country to be able to provide jobs and improve the lives of our people.
We worked hard to grow our economy and to improve and bring Nigeria up
as the biggest economy in Africa, with a GDP of about half a
trillion dollars.

Posers I had to contend with

“Should I then, for the love of power, watch Nigeria slide into a
theatre of war, with my fellow country men and women dying, and many
more pouring into other nations in Africa and beyond, as refugees?
Should I hang on to power and tussle with my challengers, while the
investments of hard working citizens of the world go down the drain? I
then said to myself, NO!

Resisting the lure of power

“I promised my God that I will not let that fate befall Nigeria under
my watch, hence the historic telephone call I put through to
congratulate my challenger even when the results were still being
tallied. I believe that for a country to be great, both the leaders
and the led must be prepared to make sacrifices. This is why, everywhere
I go, I always advise that the new generation of African leaders must
think differently. We can no longer afford to wilfully sacrifice the
blood of our citizens on the altar of dangerous partisan politics. It is
not worth it. This reminds me of one of my campaign statements to the
effect that my ambition was not worth the shedding of the blood of any
Nigerian. Some people took it then as mere political slogan but I knew
that I meant it when I said it.

We must all fight for the enthronement of political stability in
Africa, for in it lies the panacea for sustainable growth and
development. For Africa to record the kind of advancement that will be
competitive and beneficial to our citizens, we must have stable
states supported by strong institutions. That appears to be the
irreducible minimum that is common to all developed societies. Africa’s
political odyssey can distinctly be categorised into three eras, and
probably another that would later signpost its classification as a
developed continent”.

Challenges

“Some may doubt this, but it is no fluke that Africa is growing and
rising. However I will admit before you here that we still have
challenges. That is why people like us did all we could to ensure that
Nigeria, the biggest black nation on earth, would not drift into
anarchy because such a situation would have spelt doom for the rest of
the continent. It would have affected not just Nigeria alone, but the
GDP and economy of the entire West Africa. And if the economy of West
Africa crashes, it would definitely affect the performance of the
economy of the whole of Africa. As you know, the GDP of Africa is less
than three trillion dollars, with only six African countries able to
boast of nominal GDP above $100 billion. Even for those in this ‘elite’
category, you can’t really say that they are rich countries. Apart from
maybe South Africa that has an industrially competitive economy, the
rest are still mainly commodity exporting countries. Even the case of
that of South Africa is not very encouraging, because we have a
situation which we could refer to as a first world economic performance,
yet the ordinary people live the life of the people in the so called
third world.

In the case of Nigeria which is even the biggest economy on the
continent, the reality is that we have an unenviable per capita GDP of
$3,203, which is the World Bank average for a period covering 2011-2015.

Africa’s future is bright

“Even then, I still believe that Africa has a bright future; a
promising prognosis that is supported by the fact that the continent
remains a very fertile and attractive territory that yields irresistible
returns on investments. I believe that in the next few years many more
big investors will be jostling to come to Africa, if only we will do the
right thing. The process of getting it right has already started with a
democratic and increasingly democratising Africa. But we have to deepen
and strengthen our democratic credentials through regular, free and
fair elections. This will in turn bring about the stability necessary to
improve the infrastructure that promotes rapid economic growth. These
are the guarantees that would lead us into the next period which I would
like to call the era of a developed Africa. I have no doubt in my mind
that we will get there some day.

My future plans

“I will be applying myself diligently to two key areas. First, is to
work for good governance by promoting credible and transparent
elections. This will bring about the strengthening of our institutions
and the enthronement of stability. I also believe that there is the urgent need to create jobs for our
teeming young population. This is another area that will be receiving
my attention. I recall that the Vice President of your association made
reference in his speech to my achievements in that regard through
what we called Youth Enterprises with Innovation (YouWin) and the
Nagropreneur programme which encouraged young people to go into
agriculture. I believe more programmes like that should be established
to promote youth entrepreneurship. That way, we reduce their reliance on
paid employment. We will not only teach them to become entrepreneurs,
they will also acquire the capacity to employ other people. We will be
paying special attention to this segment of our society, especially
young people and women. We will develop programmes that will inculcate
in them business skills to be able to set up micro, small and medium
enterprises. We shall assist them to access take-off grants when they
acquire the relevant skills and capacities. There are many areas that
they can go into; food processing, light manufacturing and the services
sector are just some of them. I can tell you from experience that this
works. As we speak, Our Nagropreneur programme, to promote youth
involvement in agriculture value chain, is being scaled up by the African Development Bank
presently. It is already being replicated in 19 African countries
because of the success of the programme in Nigeria. I invite all of you
here today, cabinet ministers, diplomats and private sector people to
remain committed to the cause of improving lives, especially those lives
in Africa, and making our world a better place. For those of you that
will be sharing in this vision for Africa, I assure you that you will
not be disappointed. I am very optimistic that if we encourage young men
and women in this continent to develop businesses of their own, the
story of Africa will change within 10 years”.

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